The Australian Cup

Well its not called that, or anything else, yet. However, the proposed Australian version of England's FA Cup has produced a sense of excitement among the football fans of Australia. There have been debates about how the setup of the cup and the fixturing between the cup and the regular season and how many state league teams should be involved. I am going to bring out the main ideas.

Style
First of all, how should it be setup. There are two main options. The first is the FA Cup style. The Second is the style of the UEFA Champions League. The FA Cup is based on two teams playing two legs (IE. One game at home, one game away) with the winner progressing. This is the proposed way to go for us. The FA Cup starts with teams from the lower leagues playing off in the preliminary rounds, with EPL teams being seeded and drawn in. If the two-legged playoff system is adopted, a couple of problems emerge.

Clearly with only 11 A-League teams (there is proposals, for a 12th team) it is not big enough. If one cup match per week is assigned, it would be over in a few weeks. Not to mention the fact that they wont be playing enough games, hardly the sign of a strong cup competition. Even if it was stretched out over the season, it wouldn't have the same feel, and excitement. This then goes to the idea that we get state teams involved. (More on them later) There is then the potential for better scheduling.

Next is the UEFA Champions League style. Basically, every team gets seeded, and drawn into groups. Teams play the other members of the group twice, top two progress. Then they get drawn to play one of the other teams who progress, in two legged playoffs until the final. So enough games, check. Better scheduling,check.

State League Teams
The biggest question is how many state league teams do we include? Every state league team is going to be interested. But you can't just throw 50 state league teams into the mix, travel times, air fares and where they are going to play are all problems.  The obvious answer is to only allow a few state league teams into the competition, at least at first. That leaves how they are going to decide who gets in. Two options come to mind. Either top four in the league go in, Top four in the respective cup competitions come in or they have respective "playoffs" and top four comes in. The reason why I have chosen top four is because it is the best number to use. There would most likely only be teams from WA, NSW, QL, VIC and SA involved. This would mean that there would be 32 teams (including a possible 12 A-League teams). This is enough for a decent two-legged cup competition FA Cup style. If it was a UCL style 32 teams would mean a manageable eight groups with four teams.

I would propose the first option, the only thing I do not like is that not all the state league teams will play against the A-League teams. Still, it is the best option.

Scheduling
Scheduling is the next main topic. This season has seen the introduction of Mid-week matches. They have been a relative success, with a couple of them getting over 10,000 for the game. They also show that they command, on average just 2,000 spectators less than the regular weekend matches. That aint half bad. They soon could be replaced with Cup matches. Yet they can't completely completely replace them. Cup matches don't have to be played every week, in fact it's better when they aren't. There also must be room to account for any possible scenarios, such as games having to be cancelled and rescheduled.

Then you must decide when you want it to finish. More then likely it will finish before the season ends. This is because the season goes into finals. Or it could finish after the finals. I believe that with the cup competition, the FFA should remove the finals system once and for all. Then you have to consider whether you want the Cup to finish before the regular season starts or not.

I have no doubt that the addition of a cup competition will be success. It will be about finding the right way to go. But it will no doubt be a great addition to football in Australia